Last month, I curated a blog post with 40 Jane Austen quotes. These quotes were from Jane’s six novels and vast number of letters. There were so many quotes I wanted to include in the post that I had to axe several for the sake of brevity. However, I couldn’t help myself in dedicating a blog post solely to quotes from my favorite of Jane’s novels, Pride and Prejudice. I’ll proudly admit that I have read this particular novel at least a half dozen times and credit it as my segue into adoring everything about 19th century England. Please enjoy! I surely did while making my selection.
“Do not consider me now as an elegant female, intending to play you, but as a rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart.”
“If a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out.”
“An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”
“We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.”
“A girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is something to think of.”
“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”
“Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.”
“One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.”
“‘So what do you recommend to encourage affection?’ ‘Dancing. Even if one’s partner is barely tolerable.’”
“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”
“‘I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,’ said Darcy, ‘of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.’”
“She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man.”
“It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us.”
“‘Nothing is more deceitful,’ said Darcy, ‘than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.’”
“Pride is a very common failing… I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary.”
“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.”
“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
“The distance is nothing when one has a motive.”
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
“It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?”
“I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So, I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.”
“Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.”
“Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”
“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
“I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.”
“Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.”
“Do anything rather than marry without affection.”
“I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice.”
“You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness.”
“He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman’s daughter. So far we are equal.”
“Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?”
“There are very few who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.”
“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
“Do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?”
“There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.”
“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
“They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.”
Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried.”
“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.”
“We do not suffer by accident.”
References
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
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